


Like Judith and Holofernes

by divisiblebyfour



Category: Dr. STONE (Anime), Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Codependency, Gen, Hyouga isn't in this but still somehow gets his fashion choices dissed, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vomiting, a surprising amount of romantic fluff, brief mention of - Freeform, not like graphic or anything but slightly more than canon typical violence, villain tsukasa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25622071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divisiblebyfour/pseuds/divisiblebyfour
Summary: A little leftover stone shell is not enough to protect his neck when Tsukasa strikes with full force. Or, Ishigami Senku may be dead, but it is everyone else who has to live with the consequences of that.
Relationships: Ishigami Senkuu & Ogawa Yuzuriha, Ogawa Yuzuriha & Shishiou Tsukasa, Ogawa Yuzuriha/Ooki Taiju
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	Like Judith and Holofernes

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired 50% by my deep love of Yuzuriha and 50% by my confusion about Tsukasa and Senku both thinking that an injury to the cervical plexus is enough to insta-kill someone (spoiler, its not).
> 
> Anyway, sorry I keep fridging Senku to write side-character angst. Believe it or not he is actually my fav character.

Ishigami Senku is dead.

His neck lies at a disjointed, unnatural angle, and his eyes are bulged and glazed over like yesterday's unsold fish at the market. Taiju is crouched down at his side, with tears and snot running down his face, more horribly silent than she's ever heard him be. It's not his first time loosing a person he loves, but it is hers.

Tsukasa left hours ago, and its just her and Taiju and the corpse of their best friend sitting in the sun. It doesn't feel real, not his death, not anything in this awful world that she woke up to only yesterday.

It's Taiju that moves first. He stands and turns towards her where she staring into the distance trying not to look, or remember, or even think. He says in a quiet voice, "We should make him a grave. Senku told me once that things start rotting as soon as they die."

Standing in the sun on that hot, awful mountaintop with sulfur and blood in her nose, Yuzuriha, watching Taiju mutely search their belongings for something to use as a shovel, discovers what is means to truly hate.

* * *

Although it might not seem so at first glance, Senku and Taiju being friends makes sense. Their talents and personalities are such a perfect opposite that they could really only hate or adore each other, and driven together by shared childhood of misadventures, it was clearly the latter. Taiju followed Senku around like an overly affectionate puppy, and Senku, for all his teasing, happily gave him an endless supply of support and encouragement in return. So while anyone meeting the odd pair for the first time was initially baffled, that quickly faded into a sort of bemused understanding.

Her own friendship with Senku, she had gathered from several incredulous friends and concerned teachers, made no such sense from any angle. In all honesty she couldn't really explain it herself. Ask her why Senku was her best friend, and all she could say was that their interactions had always simply flown pleasantly together into a friendship, like delicate fibers on a spindle twirled together to make infinitely stronger yarn.

_Senku looking with sharp interest at the sweater she was in the process of finishing. "Your spatial reasoning must be insane to create a pattern like that. Do you have specific calculations you use for converting between stitch types?" He keeps that look of sharp interest as she goes into a happy lecture about test swatches and needles gauges. All the while she glows with happiness from the respect he gives her, so different patronizing smiles about her cute little hobbies._

_She's sewing today, the hem of skirt she drew up in an impassioned fit of creativity last night. They're all gathered at Senku's apartment since its close to school, and - being that Ishigami-san is often abroad - usually empty besides their little trio. Senku has started off on long tangent about G-forces and the effects of high and low gravity on the human body. Predictably Taiju has fallen asleep and was now drooling cutely on Senku's couch. She stays awake to sew and listen to Senku talk about air embolisms and rickets, the clear passion with which he discussing the topic a warm mirror to the frenzied way she's sketched the design of her current project last night._

_They smile at each other with shared pride behind Taiju's back as he climbs up a tree to rescue a kite for a group of elementary school children in the park. "That big idiot lets people walk all over him", Senku mutters to her like she hasn't seen him viciously defending Taiju against anyone willing to mock or try to take advantage of his good nature. "Good thing he's got you to look out for him", she whispers back, mischievously. Senku snorts, "I'll look out for Taiju, and Taiju will look out for you. I guess we can get by like that." Up in the tree, Taiju has finished gently untangling the kite, which floats down gently. After making sure the children below caught it, he turns to smile at wave at Senku and herself. Backlight by the warm afternoon sun and facing Taiju's bright toothy smile, it's easy to reply, "Then I guess that leaves me to look after you."_

That stupid quiz they'd discussed in the science clubroom. Do you save your lover, your best friend, or yourself? Yuzuriha hadn't been able to pick, happy and safe in a world that still made sense. In this awful new reality, she didn't even get a choice.

* * *

She suggests to Taiju that they go back to where Tsukasa is, "We can't stop him, but maybe we can eventually talk him out of smashing any more statues, at least."

Taiju nods and doesn't comment. She suspects that, like her, he simply wants to do anything that isn't stare at the little stone cairn that marks where they buried their best friend. Wants to think of anything that wasn't the awful sliding meaty grind of Senku's broken neck when Taiju had picked him up to be buried.

The three of them had walked to Hakone in high spirits, even knowing that they were being pursed by someone capable of murder. The two of them walk back with nothing but heavy silence.

* * *

Tsukasa does not look surprised to see them back. She thought she couldn't hate him anymore than she already did, but listening to his soft, apologetic voice explain the _necessity_ of Senku's death she learns differently. He gives them his stupid, stupid grand-standing speech about a better world for the young ( _he would kill her mother who still wore the ugly, lumpy scarf Yuzuriha had knit her when she was seven, would kill her father who still proudly pinned every test she ever took home to the family's fridge_ ), a world that does not know the evils that come along with modern civilization ( _was he excepting every person not healthy and able-bodied to lay down and die for his vision as well?_ ). He finishes speaking and stands there looking determined and beseeching. 

Taiju is is still numb and silent at her side. She looks up at Tsukasa's handsome face and into his pretty red eyes (just a few shades less vivid than Senku's had been), then lies through her teeth, "I'm not saying we agree with you, but we don't want anymore bloodshed, so we won't try to stop you."

* * *

Life goes on, for them at least. Taiju slowly regains his volume and enthusiasm. He still still can't bring himself to talk about Senku, still sometimes goes distant and numb, still clings to her, terrified that if he leaves her side, he'll come back once again to a broken body.

Tsukasa rarely speaks, but takes the bit of revival fluid they have left, and starts awakening statues to build his empire. The people he wakes up are, for the most part, brawny young men that follow him around with stars in their eyes. If any of them disagree with Tsukasa's vision, then they are not brave enough to voice their concerns.

Yuzuriha waits and plans. During the day she sews clothing, reconstructs pottery, and gathers food; at night, she dreams of Tsukasa smashing the statues of her parents, except instead of a crumbling rock sound, they break with the same awful wet crack that Senku's neck made when it snapped. She is not intelligent like Senku, nor strong like Taiju, but Yuzuriha knows how to see a project through, especially with such vivid inspiration.

* * *

Hokutouzai Minami is one of the few women that have been revived in the stone world, so perhaps it is not surprising that she seeks Yuzuriha out. She is pretty and glamorous, even in the rough leather that everyone here wears, and before all of this Yuzuriha would have been flattered that such a worldly adult wanted to chat. Perhaps she would have pleaded with the reporter to tell her silly celebrity gossip or exciting stories from her career.

Here, however, Minami is just a woman that is infatuated with the man that murdered her best friend. When she sidles up to Yuzuriha one day and begin talking about how "wonderful and kind" Tsukasa is, about how much nicer it is to live in world like this, Yuzuriha nearly slaps her though she's never thrown a hit in her life. Luckily, Taiju (sweet, honest, the kindest person she will ever know) responds before she can act on that violent impulse, with a flat, "Sorry Minami-san, but I really don't think Tsukasa is a good guy."

Then while the women is standing there gaping, Taiju grips her hand and walks away. Yuzurihara already knew she loved him, even before the world turned to stone the emotion had sat small and bright in her chest, expressed in giggling confessions to her female friends and blushes behind Taiju's back that had made Senku playfully gag at her. Here, where she wakes up every other night dry-heaving over the remembered sound of a snapped neck, and she can't even cry over all she has lost because she lives alongside a murder who wants to make sure the world is never saved, that love feels like the only thing keeping her sane. 

When they've walk far enough away to be out of Minami's sight (out of everyone's sight), Taiju relaxes from his stiff posture and lets go of her hand. She leans up on her toes and wraps her arms around his neck in a tight hug. Before that action might have set them both off blushing, but now Taiju simply curls forward and sobs silently. It's not the first time they've done this.

* * *

She doesn't tell Taiju what she's planning. This is partially because he is a horrible liar, and partially because, even now she doubts he would approve.

In all honesty, where he alive, she doubts Senku would approve. For all that he professed himself to be cold and logical, at heart he was almost ridiculously caring. When she had pulled a blade to her throat and begged for him to choose his own life on that mountain-top, she may have well have been talking to a brick-wall for all the success she'd had in convincing Senku to make the logical choice and save his own life. So no, if Senku were alive she doubts he would approve, but he isn't alive now is he?

* * *

Logistically speaking it makes sense that she talks with Tsukasa frequently, she is after all, one of the few revived that has any skills beyond hunting and fighting. The need for coordination does not make these encounters any less tense. Yuzuriha couldn't hide her animosity if she tried (and she makes no attempts to try), while Tsukasa has a wild animal's sharp instinct for killing intent and easily picks up on hers for him.

Therefore, whenever Tsukasa comes up to her to show her the newest statue to prepare clothing for or to ask for glazing techniques for distillation equipment, she offers her grudging support peppered with little digs about how, "well I wouldn't want anyone innocent to freeze, so of course I'll help."

These little insults always cause Tsukasa to frown, sometimes (usually on days where the circles under her eyes are especially dark from nightmares) she even gets a flinch. It's enraging. He knows what he did was wrong, he knows that the person he killed was innocent, yet he did it anyway. That guilty downward tilt of his mouth did not save Senku, and does not save the statues he smashes. She lets the helpless rage she feels bleed into her voice, lets Tsukasa think that venomous, petty words are the worst she has planned.

* * *

"I don't know anything about mushrooms, and the only berries and herbs I know are the ones you could see at the supermarket, but I know a few flowers and roots we can probably find around here that I can use to make dyes.", she tells the loud-mouthed former police officer, Uei Yo, who saw the red ribbon on her dress and asked for a more colorful outfit for himself. "I did an assignment for Ancient Japanese history a while back about cloth-making where I made made and dyed cloth with traditional materials, so I should be able to find some ingredients around here and do it again." Senku had been her partner on that project; they hadn't really needed to actually present anything besides a written report, but after reading about the process she'd wanted to try it out. When she'd asked Senku about borrowing his lab equipment, he'd sly suggested "seeing if they could get extra-credit out of Honda-sensei for it", though their grades where such that they didn't really need it. It had been a fun project, foraging with her dad on the weekend, and then coming into the science club early on Monday to an excited Senku prepared with an impressive array of beakers and an even more impressive knowledge of chemistry.

She smiles, "You'll have to ask Tsukasa to give Taiju and I a few days off though. It'll take sometime to find enough materials." Yo looks rather put out at that, unlike Minami and the many former athletes here, he doesn't have any particular fondness for Tsukasa. Additionally, Tsukasa scolded him several days ago for slacking off, so its unlikely he'll be willing to give Yo permission to diminish the workforce in pursuit of luxury items.

Yuzuriha decides to throws Yo a bone, "I'm sure if you told Minami-san that I could make us some dyed-leather she'd be happy to ask Tsukasa for you, and if Minami-san is the once asking, Tsukasa will definitely say yes." He won't be agreeing for the reason Yo and some of the coarser men like to insinuate about Minami, of course, but rather because, unlike Yo, Minami is hard-working and provides a valuable service to Tsukasa with her knowledge of what Yuzurihara is beginning to suspect is literally every person who's ever so much as been mentioned in a local newspaper.

Yo brightens at the suggestion, and two days later Minami (still a bit awkward with Taiju and her from their initial encounter, but ultimately far too professional to pick a fight about it) comes to her with Tsukasa's permission to head out and a list of colors everyone is interested in.

* * *

A day's walk away from Tsukasa's empire, Yuzuriha takes a deep breath for the first time in months. Tsukasa either doesn't care or thinks they are too afraid to run away, so it's just her, Taiju, and a slightly ridiculous number of baskets on this trip.

As they walk, she tells Taiju to keep an eye out for flowers, especially yellow and blue ones. They meander westward, stopping often for Taiju to point what is usually a useless but pretty patch of vegetation. About six hours in, they spot a patch of fluffy yellow safflower, and Taiju excitedly gets to picking them at her instruction.

As he works, Yuzuriha starts unpacking the smoked fish and nuts they brought along for lunch, then sneakily picks a few safflowers of her own. After Taiju has finished filling one of the smaller baskets, he comes back and exclaims happily over the food, as if it was elaborate as the fancy chocolates she'd given him last year on Valentine's day (she'd begged the use of Senku's experience with food science and his many heat-proof thermometers after burning her first batch, and the finished result has ended up a little too elaborate, as usually happened when she and Senku collaborated.)

While Taiju is distracted by the food, she plops a flower-crown of safflowers she just quickly made onto his head, and giggles at the resulting confused expression. They end up spending several hours in that clearing when Taiju insists she teach him how to make his own flower-crown after lunch before they resume work. His thick eyebrows scrunch together and his large hands clumsily twist stems, all the while the crown she made rests yellow and fluffy around his ears. Taiju is strong, but it is a strength tempered with patience and a gentle nature, so the crown he presents her with is a little lopsided but overall well-made.

It's also far too large for her and immediately slides down to become a necklace after she puts it on. Taiju's face is so aghast at this turn of events, Yuzuriha can't help bursting into laughter so hard that tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and after few seconds of frantic apologies, Taiju happily joins her.

* * *

Yuzuriha sleeps that night with no nightmares and wakes feeling lighter than she has in months. Taiju seems to be the same, as they continue their journey he talks and laughs almost as loudly as he used to outings with Senku and herself after-school.

They focus on blue flowers todays, since she can probably make most of the requested reds and yellows with the several baskets of safflowers they have already gathered. It'd be nice to find some Japanese indigo for blues and purples, though preparing that would require a month's long fermentation and a very large supply of plants. Some irises would also be nice, as someone for whatever reason had requested black clothing. She could make black dye fairly easily out of walnut husks, but those tended to create more of a muddy dark brown than a true smooth black color. If someone was going to request such an overly plain color (honestly, they all lived in caves and worked in a forest, all they saw all day where greens, browns, grays, and blacks!), she could at least make it look finished and intentional.

She's scanning the the woods for flowers and idly wondering if Tsukasa had revived a closet goth (or was a closet goth?), when Taiju speaks up, "You know how to do this because of that project you and Senku did for Ancient Japanese History right? Honda-sensei was so impressed, he still had that cloth you made hanging up in the faculty office, you know. I even heard from a senpai that he even bragged about it at his college reunion." It's the first time that he's said Senku's name, has even willingly referred to his existence since that day Hakone. His voice sounds heavy, but the tone is intentionally light.

She inhales sharply, then does her best to smile and respond in kind. "It wasn't even that impressive since I bought the thread and used a modern-day loom, but Senku said its probably the first time anyone shown so much interest in his class since he's not the best lecturer." It's hard to talk, feels like she swallowed something heavy, but Taiju smiles encouragingly and she tells him the whole story. Its ridiculous, honestly. Taiju wasn't in their class that year, but the three of them were close enough the he'd heard about the project both during and after the whole event. Stills it gets easier to speak as she goes and by the end of the story she's giggling about how she'd accidentally spilled red dye on Senku's lab-coat and next day he'd come in grumbling about how a sleep-deprived Byakuya had mistaken the vivid red color for blood over a video call and for some reason jumped to the conclusion his son had been in a fistfight. 

Taiju laughs loudly, like he hasn't heard this story a million times before, and tells her about the first time he and Senku ever got the police called on them after frightening passersby with explosions.

Soon they are laughing and trading stories about the various misdemeanors and misadventures they've gotten caught up in with Senku over the years. It hurts a little, but rather than the festering pain of nightmares, its feels more like the ache of a freshly ripped off bandage.

* * *

Five false patches of blue-purple flowers later, one of which Taiju knew was wrong but pointed out anyway so that he could relate a story about the many, many times his foraging adventures last year had ended with an angry demand from Senku about whether Taiju was trying to kill off the rest of humanity via food poisoning, they find a nice patch of irises.

It takes the rest of the day to dig them up, as they need the roots rather than the petals. They should probably start heading back after this, as they've only packed enough food for 3 days. She's a bit disappointed that they didn't find any Japanese indigo, but hiking back with baskets laden down with flowers and roots, she knows she found more than could have been expected anyway.

* * *

Unfortunately, setting up a dyeing station is going to take a good bit of coordination. So that means upon returning, she ends up in another tense discussion with their resident despot, Tsukasa. Yuzuriha tells him she will need several large glazed pots and a large amount of firewood. Tsukasa nods, and says he will get Minami to organize a rotation schedule so that people will know when to drop off their spare outfits for dyeing.

When the details have been hashed out, and they've stood in laden silence for several seconds where two people on better terms would have been exchanging parting pleasantries, Yuzuriha poses a question, "What are we going to do about food for the winter? I think I could make preserves if I had glass, but I don't know how we could sterilize them in pottery. I suppose we could pickle some fruit, but I don't know how to do that. We can't just rely on meat and fish though, we would definitely all end up with scurvy." 

Perhaps her tone is a bit challenging, but food for the winter is a concern. Additionally she's already eaten a frankly absurd amount of smoked fish, broken up with the occasional foraged greens and berries, since being revived, and if she has to switch to only smoked fish for a season the culinary boredom will get her far before the lack of vitamin C.

Tsukasa hums consideringly, "Most of the the alcohol we produce is going towards the revival fluid, but it would be a good idea to set some aside to make vinegar for pickling." He nods solemnly, "It's a valid concern, next week I'll tell everyone to focus more on roots and nuts that we can store for winter."

"Then after I finish up with the dyeing project, I'll take Taiju over to a large patch of kudzu he found." At Tsukasa's subtly raised eyebrows, she explains, "Senku apparently had him and Taiju eating it last year. Taiju told me it's a bit chewy but still edible." She smiles a bit cruelly, and says in a sweet voice, "Its important that we have vegetables for winter though so I guess we'll make do. After all, we wouldn't want any more needless deaths this year."

As far as parting shots go, it's not her best. Tsukasa doesn't even flinch, though his eyes do tighten at the corners. Yuzuriha's in too good a mood to truly be bothered though, and turns around to continue working on her newest project with Taiju trailing behind.

* * *

Kudzu roots, as it turns out are, while not too bad in terms of taste, a sort of disgustingly chewy that brings to mind the sensation of munching on wet bark. Taiju shoots her an apologetic look when she finally manages to choke down the bite she took. "Sorry Yuzuriha, Senku said that the young roots are easier to eat so let's look for those. Here have some water."

She thankfully grabs the pro-offered water skin, and takes a sip. They are near the campsite where she was revived, and where Senku and Taiju lived for almost a year. It's far enough away from Tsukasa and his followers that Taiju is comfortable being shooed about 20 feet away (not out of sight, never again out of sight) to work on gathering kudzu in his own separate patch.

She crouches in the grass, picking carefully at roots, while boundlessly energetic Taiju makes a little-semicircle around her with his fast clearing. He ends up with two large, full baskets to the paltry little half-a-basket that she has filled, and still asks if he can carries her back for her. She refuses with a laugh.

* * *

When they get back to Tsukasa's little empire, they quickly seek him out to report the fruits (roots?) of their labor. He's at the edge of his large cave talking quietly with Minami about potentially reviving someone with culinary experience. He greets them and their baskets with a nod, and Minami gives them a smile. She wearing the new dress with red accents that Yuzuriha had sewn last week. She's been friendlier and less awkward with them recently, though Yuzuriha's not sure if it's the dress that softened her mood, or Tsukasa had made some excuses for their obvious dislike of him.

"We found a lot of kudzu, but it's not particularly tasty", she hands a root from her basket to Minami and then to Tsukasa to demonstrate. Minami blanches and stops after single bite, while Tsukasa makes a face, but never one to waste food, soliders through.

"Ugh that was like eating some awful herbal medicine you'd take to try to lose weight. I'd almost rather risk scurvy." Minami comments.

Taiju frowns, "Sorry, the young roots aren't as bad, but I think that I already gathered all those last year. Maybe we could cook it to make it taste better? I had a bite of the ones we picked today and it reminded me of biting into a raw potato, so boiling it might help."

"You've taken a bite of a raw potato before?", Minami jokes.

"Well my grandmother left some that had been sliced and peeled on a counter once, and I took a bite thinking they were apple slices." Taiju explains seriously. Minami keeps a straight face for a single second, then bursts into a series of hiccupy giggles that have Taiju blushing.

Tsukasa wanders off, with a quiet "We can talk more later" in response to Minami's hysterics and Taiju's loud assertions that this type of thing could happen to anybody. Yuzuriha smiles.

* * *

The thing is, if she, Taiju, or Senku share a class they inevitably end up teaming up for group work, which inevitably ends up over the top to their teacher's joy and/or despair (rumors had it that the poor teacher who had been tasked with Senku and Taiju as lab-partners had gone to the principal to beg for early retirement a week into their chemistry block). Its not that Yuzuriha disliked working with her other friends, but why would she ever want to just write a paper when she could be talking Senku down from giving a presentation on traditional Ainu hunting techniques, complete with real poisoned spear tips (the entire humanities department at their school lived in a mix of exasperation and fear of Senku).

Senku had latched onto the clothes dyeing idea as an alternative fairly quickly, especially when she'd suggested incorporating a hand-made component, but he'd still grumbled about not being allowed to make a bear-hunting spear. He grumbled he even more when, relaying the conversation to Taiju after school, Taiju had brightly commented that, "even with a poisoned spear tip paralyze it, I think you're still to weak to take down a bear, Senku." Which had earned them both a lecture on the neurotoxic effects of _Aconitum_. Taiju had responded that all this talk of bears made him want to eat something with honey, and dragged them to a cafe.

* * *

As clingy as Taiju has been since they lost Senku, he is still old-fashioned in a way only a child raised by his grandparents can be. He might have a new pathological need to keep Yuzuriha in sight (she could never begrudge him that, after what they went through), but all it takes is a quick whisper about needing to attend to "private business" and a promise to meet soon at the cave they share, and he's off, though she knows that he'll just sit quietly with a white knuckled grip until they are back in each others' sight.

Normally, Yuzuriha uses the half-hour or so that she and Taiju can bare to be separated to bathe or wash the blood-stained underwear she has set aside for her period (and wasn't that a pain in this world, she may never truly like Minami, but she and the rest of the revived women who menstruated had formed a rather desperate bond over finding suitable materials to use for pads). Today, however, Yuzuriha does not head to section of river that Nicki, a revived female athlete with a tough big-sister personality, had made very clear was to be private for the women to bathe.

It's been about an hour since she and Taiju left Minami to store the kudzu roots they'd gathered in the large cave that been recently set aside for winter food storage. She walks unhurriedly through the heart of this primitive little empire. She bumps into Minami again (easy to spot, she and Yuzuriha are shorter than everyone else here by about a foot) who excitedly tells her they've decided to revive a famous young chef who had been known to have an interest in urban foraging. She walks by Yo who has decided to compliment his newly colorful outfit with a bit of stone (likely from from his own petrification-shell) fashioned into a mask. It's a wonderfully cool day after a summer with no air-conditioning, and everyone is in good spirits.

Tsukasa has a "meeting room" where he gives orders, centrally located and complete with a large rock roughly fashioned into a seat. It resembles a crude throne room, and the first time Yuzuriha had seen it, she'd asked Tsukasa if she wanted her to make a crown to match, with a disgust she hadn't bothered to restrain.

Tsukasa sleeps, however, in a modestly sized cave that is actually not too far from the one she shares with Taiju, close to the path to the clearing where Senku had built his lab and tree house. Most of his followers probably don't even know he keeps a separate space to sleep. Tsukasa spends most of his time either ordering people around from his rocky throne or keeping a watchfully controlling eye on the revived. She's never seen him have a personal conversation or visit anyone socially, and the people around him are too intimidated or worshipful to ever initiate such as thing.

The cave is dark and smells of rocky earth and vomit when she arrives. Tsukasa doesn't seem to notice her entering from where he's collapsed on his cot of animal skins. He probably wasn't even worried when he first laid down. Someone gives themselves food poisoning just about every week here between their inexperience in foraging and a lack of familiarity with cooking over an open flame. Luckily, as long at they stay away from all but the most easily identifiable mushrooms and err on the side of over-cooking their meats, for the most part its been fairly easy to avoid serious harm. They've discovered that a fully-grown person would have to ingest a fairly large amount of a poisonous plant to be in any serious danger, and so far the worst they've had was Yo eating some suspect berries that gave him a swollen mouth and left him vomiting for a few days. Who knows, maybe Tsukasa even guessed that she intentionally gave him something inedible as a sort of petty revenge when he'd first started feeling off?

He's still breathing when she gets close enough to check. The breaths are harsh and uneven, and even if he was conscious he likely wouldn't be able to move his arms and legs. It's not terribly surprising that he's still alive, wolfsbane may have been used to hunt bears in the past, and its roots may be the most poisonous part, but Tsukasa is a large man. If he doesn't choke on his own vomit and his lungs don't become fully paralyzed, he might even survive the amount he wolfsbane root he ate.

Yuzuriha could try to wake him up and monologue at him. She could explain how Senku had been brilliant and kind, not at all the type of person who deserved die (but Tsukasa had known that and killed him anyway); she could gloat about how it was knowledge passed onto her by Senku that led to Tsukasa's downfall (but she'll let him figure that out in hell).

The oversized blade that Tsukasa held against her neck on that mountaintop so many months ago is leaning against the far wall. It takes both hands to lift it.

Her mother had liked to say, "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Taiju was so insistent on non-violence he'd rather stand there and let himself be hit than so much as shove his aggressor. Senku, prickly but kind, used to call revenge "illogical", and actually mean it in the way he never did when using that same word to denounce love and friendship. He wouldn't want this if he were still alive, but what does that matter when he's already dead.

Yuzuriha's chest is cold with certainty and her hands shaking with half a year's worth of repressed rage when she lets gravity bring down the blade.

* * *

Tsukasa's cave isn't far from her own, so she ends up making it back to Taiju in probably less than 30 minutes since she last saw him.

His face goes white when he sees the blood on her, and he charges forward to her side. She catches his frantic hovering hands, and whispers, "Its okay, it's not my blood" and other reassurances till he's calmed down enough to listen.

She clenches her fists, "Tsukasa is dead. I need to leave." Yuzuriha does not regret what she's done, not with mountain of shattered strangers that grew larger by the day, not with the ever present fear Tsukasa would come upon the statues of her own parents, not with Senku dead with a wet snap that she can never unhear. Yuzuriha doesn't regret it, but she won't assume sweet, kind, forgiving Taiju will still want to follow her after this.

Taiju takes a deep breath, his eyes are serious, "I trust you Yuzuriha. He, he would have just kept killing people if you didn't stop him." She doesn't regret killing Tsukasa but she could almost cry with relief that she isn't going to lose Taiju too.

She doesn't have time to cry though. They need to leave. "Lets head south to Hakone again, the area where we saw those fires. I'm not sure if there are actually other people there, but it's something at least."

She will never see her best friend again and may never find her parents for revival, that hasn't changed. But the way things are, it's something at least.

**Author's Note:**

> If it makes you feel any better, they tots find Ishigami village. Upon hearing the Yuzu took down "that asshole that killed a guy and left me trapped under a tree", Kohaku decides Yuzu is her new best friend. Also chrome gets like, unofficially adopted by Taiju and Yuzu bc his passion for knowledge reminds them of Senku. Magma, meanwhile, mysteriously went missing right b4 the re-held village games. Wow, so mysterious, no that isn't human blood on Kohaku's spear, why do you ask?  
> Anyways on kingdom of might side, Gen hasn't been revived yet bc this Tsukasa didn't need him to hunt down Senku. Hyouga has been revived (and had his black booty shorts/cape/mask combo JUDGED by our resident seamstress Yuzu. She concluded that he wasn't closet goth, but closet visual kei.) He is currently too busy having a paranoid meltdown about who beat him to the punch in offing Tsukasa to cause too much trouble.  
> Semi-happy ending? I mean Senku's still dead, Ruri's still sick, Yuzu and Taiju have massive PTSD, and nobody has any concrete plan on reviving the majority of humanity, but it could be worse?
> 
> Oh, minami's fine too. Yuzu legit just gave her a kudzu root (which you should boil before eating, bc its basically a potato tuber)! Yuzu only grabbed like one wolfsbane root and then spent the rest of her time looking for skinny kudzu roots to cameo it. If anyone remembers Taiju brought back some wolfs-bane foraging near the campsite once in the manga, and him telling her about it (and pointing out what it looked like) gave yuzu this idea but she had back-up plans if Tsukasa had refused to eat it.
> 
> Finally, while I did do research on this fic, it wasn't like a lot of research, so don't use it as guide to dye clothing, write history paper, or like plan a murder I guess, lol?


End file.
